The Debate Lesson: America Now Has an Openly Socialist Party

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National Review:

The Debate Lesson: America Now Has an Openly Socialist Party

 

by JIM GERAGHTY October 13, 2015 11:05 PM Sure, this batch of candidates sounded like a bunch of loons. They contended socialism is mostly about standing up to the richest one percent and promoting entrepreneurs and small business; climate change is the biggest national security threat facing the nation; college educations should be free for everyone; all lives don’t matter, black lives do; Obama is simultaneously an enormously successful president in managing the economy and the middle class is collapsing and there’s a need for a “New New Deal” which is in fact an Old Old Idea, considering how FDR called for a Second New Deal in 1935. The audience in Nevada applauded higher taxes, believes that Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to answer any more questions, supports the complete shutdown of the NSA domestic surveillance program, and that Obamacare benefits should be extended to illegal immigrants. There are kindergarten classes with more realistic assessments of cost-benefit tradeoffs than the crowd watching this debate at the Wynn Las Vegas.

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DANCE OF THE LEMONS

Seven lowlights from the dumbest debate in the history of the republic.

 

By Scott McKay – 10.14.15

Ever heard the phrase “dance of the lemons”? It’s a term invented to describe the rather distasteful annual spectacle within public education wherein failed unionized teachers who cannot be fired by a public school system are merely shuffled from one bad school to another each summer.

 

In a different context, that phrase could also be applied to the collection of retreads, failures, and kooks assembled on stage in a Las Vegas casino ballroom Tuesday night in front of the CNN cameras for the first Democrat debate. The privileged, tenured, and thoroughly talentless politicians on display by that party gave us a two-and-a-half-hour demonstration of just how hollowed-out the Democrats are after seven years of Barack Obama, and made a prophet of Donald Trump who suggested most of America wouldn’t last more than 10 minutes in watching them.

 

We endured it so you didn’t have to. And here are seven moments illustrating just how awful it was. http://spectator.org/articles/64364/dance-lemons

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A NIGHT TO FORGET IN LAS VEGAS

The Democrats put on a dull debate, with only a few jabs at Hillary.

By George Neumayr – 10.14.15

 

The Democratic National Committee has received much criticism for its decision to limit the number of debates but after Tuesday’s boring and inconsequential one in Las Vegas that criticism may lessen. Nobody on stage seemed too interested in challenging Hillary. To the extent that any of these candidates struck at her, it was with the flat of the blade.

 

Martin O’Malley, who has been whining about the paucity of debates, made little to no effort to debate Hillary. Why does he want so many debates held if he thinks issues like her e-mail scandal aren’t worth debating? Given the chance by CNN host Anderson Cooper to attack her on that issue, O’Malley wilted. He saved his courage for pols not in the room, those odious “xenophobes” who don’t support open borders.

There were few if any mentions of the Constitution in the debate. The candidates preferred to talk about open borders, big government, legalized pot, and Scandinavia-style mores.

http://spectator.org/articles/64363/night-forget-las-vegas

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The Evil Party and the Stupid Party Debate

by Roger L Simon / OCTOBER 14, 2015 - 5:08 AM

 

Republicans should wake up because, stultifying and predictable as the Democrats were Tuesday night (in case you missed it, Lincoln Chafee is a Man of Peace — or was it granite?), much as “climate change” is now the official religion of their party (someone should lead a prayer to Gaia at the beginning of their debates), much as they promise endless new pie-in-the-sky social programs without the slightest hint of how they intend to pay for them (other than taxing Donald Trump), the “evil party” didn’t spend much of the evening tearing each other down. Quite the contrary. With the most minor exceptions, they provided a cheering section for each other.,

When Bernie Sanders (a fatuous moral narcissist who reminds me of a Jewish Norman Thomas) gave an immense gift to Clinton by pushing the email scandal to the side, saying the American public wasn’t interested in such tiresome peripheral stuff when the middle class was suffering, shaking hands with Hillary on that “brilliant” insight and getting a huge ovation from the partisan audience for his trouble

http://pjmedia.com/diaryofamadvoter/2015/10/14/the-evil-party-and-the-stupid-party-debate/

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THIEVES, LIARS AND IDIOTS: THE TWO HOUR DEMOCRATIC DEBATE

A night the Democratic Party should be ashamed of.

October 14, 2015 Daniel Greenfield 11

 

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.

 

“A little bit of this town goes a very long way,” Hunter S. Thompson said. “After five days in Vegas you feel like you've been here for five years.”

 

That went triple for the miserable parade of hypocrisies that was the Democratic debate where a gaggle of establishment political hacks claimed to be the voice of political change and where men and women whose combined net worth could break banks ranted about the rich in a debate hosted in a $2.7 billion dollar luxury resort and casino with its own Ferrari dealership so that the candidates can take a break from their income inequality spiels to test drive a 2015 Maserati GranTurismo.

 

The Democratic debate only ran hours, but it seemed to last for years as the Democratic Party’s crazy Socialist grandpa Bernie Sanders nervously waved his hands, struggled to follow the answers of the other candidates and talked about himself in the third person.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260451/thieves-liars-and-idiots-two-hour-democratic-daniel-greenfield

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Debate Night

Clinton crushes it

 

But Sanders recovers after a rocky start in the first Democratic debate.

 

By Shane Goldmacher10/13/15 05:48 PM EDT Updated

10/14/15 12:37 AM EDT

 

The first debate was the Hillary and Bernie Show, and Hillary received top billing.

Not only was Hillary Clinton on the receiving end of the night’s biggest gift — her rival, Bernie Sanders, declaring it time for people to shut up about her email scandal — she also delivered some of the evening’s most stinging retorts.

 

The Democratic front-runner showed renewed energy and comfort on a presidential debate stage where she, but none of the others, had been before. But one of the most dramatic and memorable moments came from Sanders. And it was a plea for the political conversation to move on from the email controversy that has consumed much of the overall Democratic race

 

“The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” Sanders declared, after Clinton defended her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state and cast the Republican-led congressional investigation as overly partisan

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/2016-presidential-debates-democrats-las-vegas-214724

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October 14, 2015

The Democratic Candidates Showed Themselves to be Lackluster and Out-of-Date

By E. Jeffrey Ludwig

It was clear from the first five minutes of the Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate on CNN (Oct. 13, 2015) that the debaters were sadly out-of-date. It seemed we went through a time-space warp. Social, economic, and foreign policy issues were discussed as though no laws addressing these concerns had been passed during the past 100 years.

 

Blacks

 

Anderson Cooper asked the candidates if “black lives matter or all lives matter.” No one acknowledged that black-on-black crime has skyrocketed in our cities. No one noted that the Democrats have controlled our big cities for more than 50 years, yet poverty, the collapse of the black family, and gun violence have been escalating that entire time. No one noted that literally trillions of dollars in Federal poverty dollars have been poured into communities of color with less than glorious results. No one noted the gains made through Affirmative Action or civil rights legislation. Instead we had references to “get out of jail free” cards to offset too much incarceration, free tuition for college (I’ve been good Santa, really), and making those rich bastards in the top .6% pay, pay, and pay some more.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/the_democratic_candidates_showed_themselves_to_be_lackluster_and_outofdate.html

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Clinton scores big in first debate

By Niall Stanage - 10/14/15 01:00 AM EDT

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Hillary Clinton had the best night of her presidential campaign in Las Vegas on Tuesday, scoring a clear-cut victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and her other rivals at the first Democratic debate.

 

Clinton’s experience — she debated President Obama more than 20 times during the 2008 campaign — was apparent in a fluent and confident performance. Whereas much of the pre-debate punditry had focused on Clinton’s apparent vulnerabilities, she was on offense for the bulk of the two-hour encounter, especially in the crucial opening minutes.

 

Sanders, by contrast, was put on his heels early by having to defend his position on gun control, the one issue on which he can be outflanked to the left by Clinton and others. The Vermont senator enjoyed better moments as the encounter, televised by CNN, went on http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/256869-clinton-scores-big-in-first-debate\

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Anderson Cooper and Hillary Clinton Won the Debate

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | October 14th, 2015 at 04:00 AM

 

Let me first sing Anderson Cooper’s praises.

 

He kept the trains running on time. He forced the candidates to answer questions they otherwise did not want to answer. He pushed on gun control; he pushed on Clinton’s emails; he held his ground against an audience even against him. Anderson Cooper won the debate, but he is not running for President.

 

Hillary Clinton was the winner of the debate. Her stage presence was pleasant compared to a yelling Bernie Sanders and an angry Jim Webb. She looked at the other candidates who were speaking, making eye contact and nodding. She had a humorous moment with Anderson Cooper over the bathroom break. And she cleaned Bernie Sanders’ clock.

http://www.redstate.com/2015/10/14/anderson-cooper-and-hillary-clinton-won-the-debate/

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The Dispiriting Democratic Debate

By DANIEL LARISON • October 14, 2015, 1:01 AM

As far as it concerned foreign policy issues, the first debate among the Democratic presidential candidates was a dispiriting affair. Hillary Clinton sailed through the evening virtually unscathed while her opponents struggled in vain to challenge her on anything. O’Malley’s criticism of the Libyan war remained vague and anemic, Sanders’ statements on Syria were dull and lacking in specifics, Chafee was generally hopeless, and Webb went out of his way to emphasize his biggest weakness by repeatedly touting his opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran. This allowed Clinton to shrug off criticisms of her support for the Libyan war, mute her differences with the rest of the field on Syria, and present herself as the most polished and prepared candidate of the group. The opportunity to attack Clinton on her foreign policy vulnerabilities was completely squandered, and none of the other candidates rose to the challenge last night.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-dispiriting-democratic-debate/

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A NIGHT TO FORGET IN LAS VEGAS

The Democrats put on a dull debate, with only a few jabs at Hillary.

By George Neumayr – 10.14.15

 

 

 

 

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October 14, 2015

Bernie Sanders, Hillary's 'damned emails' and the cheering press room

By Thomas Lifson

Bernie Sanders crawled into the tank (where he jlined the media) and strengthened the possibility of being Hillary Clinton’s running mate (or God forbid cabinet member) last night when he said during the first Democratic debate:

“Let me say something that may not be great politics, but I think the secretary is right, and that is the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damned emails!

 

“The middle class Anderson, and let me say something about the media as well. I go around the country talk to a whole lot of people, middle class in this country is collapsing. We have twenty-seven million people living in poverty. We have massive wealth and income inequality. Our trade policies have cost us millions of decent jobs. The American people want to know whether we’re going to have a democracy or an oligarchy as a result of Citizens United. http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/bernie_sanders_hillarys_damned_emails_and_the_cheering_press_room.html

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Freedom's Safest Place | My Story

NRA

 

Published on Sep 11, 2015

There will always be evil in this world. But the one thing that separates America from every other country is our freedom. And the one freedom that protects all the others is our Second Amendment. Never give it up. The National Rifle Association is Freedom's Safest Place.

 

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Only The State will have guns...

http://elevenbravotwenty.blogspot.com/2015/10/only-state-will-have-guns.html

 

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He shot them. With guns...

 

~~~~~~~~~

[SrWoodchuck]

 

 

Via TheoSpark

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Introducing The ‘Democratic Socialist’ Party

 

Bernie Sanders is an extremist. So why do so many people in the Democratic Party sound just like him?

By David Harsanyi OCTOBER 16, 2015

The Left loves to ridicule Republicans for standing on the “wrong side of history.” And let’s concede, for this piece at least, that conservatives hold hopelessly archaic views on social and cultural issues. But what if there were a party whose economic case rested on undermining the most successful, poverty-reducing, prosperity-creating idea ever known to mankind? What would history say about that?

 

No one seems too troubled that Democrats ratchet up the collectivist rhetoric every election. We mock conservatives for red-baiting and throwing around the word “socialism.” And let’s face it, the term is overused and misunderstood. But as we saw in the Las Vegas the other night, the Democratic Party is not a party of Great Society liberals anymore.

Liberals like to claim that if a person supports any government program it means that person enjoys the benefits of socialism. http://thefederalist.com/2015/10/16/introducing-the-democratic-socialist-party/

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For the Left, It’s Always Time for a New New Deal
Jonah Goldberg
October 17, 2015
Dear Reader (Especially those of you who would rally to my cause with sympathy and concern if I was found face down in a brothel, having OD’d on hookers, brandy, cocaine, and herbal Viagra), It’s weird. I’m kind of a politics junkie, but not like some of my colleagues and friends. There are politics addicts in this town who’d walk Wilshire Blvd in six-inch heels just for a glimpse of some exit-poll numbers on Election Day. “Gimme a fix, man. I’ll do whatever you want.” And I’m talking mostly about dudes.

Still, I’m interested in politics more than a normal, healthy person should be. And yet, I really resented watching the Democratic debate. I watched because it’s part of my job. I felt a little bit like the stock boy at the grocery store being told “some kid just barfed up an inhumanly large amount animal crackers and corn kernels in aisle three. Take care of it.” But I also felt like Peter Gibbons in Office Space, listening to his bosses drone on about their TPS reports, his soul slowly evaporating under the fluorescent lights. (That’s a fact, by the way: Fluorescent lights are like ectoplasmic kilns; sit under them for too long and your eternal soul essentially turns to chalk dust. This is why some believe Sidney Blumenthal was raised in an old refrigerator box under fluorescent klieg lights.)

 

(Snip)

Well, the protagonists on that debate stage may not have been a set-up in the sense that the fix was in. But of course Hillary Clinton won the debate! Her opponents were like Mohammed, Jagdish, Sidney, and Clayton from Animal House. It was like a line-up at the station house where all the other suspects are cops in uniform, except for Hillary.

 

I mean good gawd, Lincoln Chafee? He’s less a presidential candidate and more a cautionary tale of what happens to WASP genes when you drench them in scotch, ink residue from old issues of Mother Jones, and bong resin. I could swear I’ve seen him walking down the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica wearing nothing but a bathrobe, Oberlin College sweat pants, and a stained Jefferson Starship T-shirt. He’s like the Kathy Geiss of American politics. In other words, he represents a major swath of Bernie Sanders’s base.

 

I’m being unkind to Jim Webb, who was kind of fascinating and awesome. He seemed almost like a different species than Chafee. I loved Webb’s last line about his real enemy being the guy who threw a grenade at him in Vietnam for all the reasons David French gives here. (Still, I keep using my Ron Burgundy voice to say, “Jim killed a guy!”) Webb’s a great reminder that serious men once found a home in the Democratic party.

 

But he has no chance of getting the nomination. None of them do, really — with the possible exception of Bernie Sanders.......................(Snip)

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Via TheoSpark

 

It also didn't work very well. Which is why by the High Middle Ages it was going away.

 

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October 16, 2015

Hillary has met the enemy, and it is you

By Ethel C. Fenig

 

Those women who usually vote Republican but are now perhaps considering voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton because of gender solidarity or Republican men who want a chance to participate in a first should remember that the warm feelings are not reciprocated.

 

When asked by Anderson Cooper during the Democratic debate the other night, "Which enemy that you made during your political career are you most proud of?," the other potential candidates rattled off the usual suspects in the Democratic pantheon of evil – various big businesses, organizations, or countries. Hillary did also, but she proudly topped it off with her biggest enemy – Republicans! http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/hillary_has_met_the_enemy_and_it_is_you.html

 

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